PLDT switches off myTV

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) says its mobile arm Smart Communications will no longer offer its myTV mobile service to customers. Until now, the service was being offered for free on a trial basis. However, in a filing with the regulator the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) dated 13 May 2010, Smart Communications and partners, Nation Broadcasting Corp, GV Broadcasting System and 360Media Inc said: ‘The myTV demo/trial service has been suspended indefinitely effective 1 April 2010.’ PLDT is understood to be awaiting new government rules on the provision of mobile TV services before rushing headlong into a full-blown commercial service. PLDT’s decision comes in the wake of a complaint by the Philippine Cable Television Association (PCTA), which represents a group of around 300 cable TV operators in the country, that PLDT was breaking rules in the way it was using frequencies by different PLDT-owned subsidiaries.